To strengthen the capacity of think tanks in policy development, impact assessment, and strategic communications — particularly in the context of Ukraine’s European integration — the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, with the support of the European Union, has joined efforts with partners in Ukraine, Lithuania, and Moldova. The national partner tasked with enhancing communication capacity is the Centre for Strategic Communications, StratCom Ukraine.
Eight organisations have joined the network of gender think tanks: the Centre for Society Research (Cedos), Vox Ukraine, JurFem, the Bureau of Gender Strategies and Budgeting, the Intellect of Sumy Region Centre, Women in the Media, the Information and Consultative Women’s Centre, and the Legal Hundred.
“The project’s objective was to strengthen the advisory and monitoring role of think tanks in the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement,” says Maria Volodina, project manager at StratCom Ukraine.
Under mentoring support, the centres developed and implemented 20 independent regional communication campaigns. These initiatives are aimed at raising public awareness in Ukraine about the benefits of European integration — particularly in the field of gender equality — as well as informing the international community about Ukraine’s progress.
“The project began with a three-day communications camp, where representatives of think tanks worked on key messages, effective communication formats and channels, analysed successful cases, and studied approaches to covering gender-sensitive topics. “We analysed what a communication strategy consists of, why it is implemented, and how to formulate tasks and goals for our centres,” says Mariia Volodina, project manager at StratCom Ukraine, the Centre for Strategic Communications.
For many centres, participation in the communication camp was the first hands-on experience of this level, which allowed them not only to deepen their theoretical knowledge but also to develop specific practices and a clear vision of further steps.
They received an analysis of their media presence, including the effectiveness of communication channels, expert visibility, and accessibility to the media. This provided impetus for systematic work on communications and boosted the confidence of the teams.
“The camp was followed by individual mentoring sessions, during which individual plans for developing the communication capabilities of think tanks were developed. We presented the centres with an analysis of their media presence. The analysis included an assessment of the effectiveness of communication channels, the presence of experts in the media, and the availability of contacts for journalists. This gave an impetus to systematic work on communication and increased the teams’ confidence,” says Mariia Volodina, project manager at the Centre for Strategic Communications, StratCom Ukraine.
Most organisations faced similar start-up challenges: the lack of sustainable communication teams, a communication manager or their involvement only in specific projects, and the absence or incompleteness of a communication strategy.
“In many centres, there was a problem with the visibility of experts: there were many specialists, but not enough resources to promote them. Therefore, when developing communication plans, we recommended creating expert maps with their profiles. These steps proved to be very useful: the centres began to use the recommendations regularly, which significantly increased the visibility of experts – and their confidence. Cross-sectoral cooperation has increased, and communication with government agencies and the media has improved. Think tanks have realised the importance of an ongoing dialogue with the media, not just one-off contacts,” explains Maria Volodina, project manager at the Centre for Strategic Communications, StratCom Ukraine.
All the centres point to increased expert visibility as a key result.
“The project — particularly its communications component — opened new opportunities for the development of the JurFem Analytical Centre. During the mentoring sessions, we worked together with experts to analyse how we could improve our communication capacity. Some of the recommendations have already been implemented — for instance, we discussed how important it is for the organisation’s own experts to communicate their work. To support this, we developed a visibility concept for our women experts and are now actively putting it into practice,” says Olena Ohonovska, Communications and Partnerships Development Specialist at the Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association “JurFem.” “One of the key recommendations was to extend the lifespan of content. As part of the project, we worked on a series of video podcasts titled ‘Integrating into the EU: Conversations about Gender Equality’, which show how EU integration processes in this area can change the everyday lives of Ukrainians. A crucial aspect was that we managed to make this product as barrier-free as possible — it is available in three formats (audio, video, and text), with subtitles in Ukrainian, English, and sign language. Five episodes have gathered over 700,000 views on YouTube and thousands more on social media. Thanks to the support of the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, we were able to expand our regional outreach and explain how the gender dimension of EU integration helps reduce inequality and the burden of unpaid care.”
The 20 communication strategies have already been completed. Among them is the Cedos analytical centre, which, as a result of the project, developed a media map and a map of speakers, as well as detailed the team’s expertise to make communication with the centre’s specialists more accessible.
“Among the developments that we managed to make in the process of consultation and mentoring with Stratcom, I would like to highlight the organisation’s Talking Heads document, a list of experts with their work profile and contacts. Thanks to this document, which we will soon distribute to the media, journalists will be able to directly contact our experts for comments for their publications. The ideas of the “Database of contacts of representatives of legislative and executive authorities” and the “Media Map” were also very useful. “We plan to create and launch all these documents after the final update of the Cedos communication strategy, i.e. in the near future,” says Andriy Smirnov, Head of the Cedos Communications Department. “The consultations with StratCom were a good “homework” for us: all the above-mentioned documents are best practices that we may have thought about, but did not have a good living example to implement.
Thanks to the mentoring support, think tanks not only developed but also successfully implemented independent communication campaigns united by a common vision – to convey to the public that Ukraine’s European integration is not only about politics or reforms, but also about the daily quality of life, equal rights and opportunities for all. These campaigns have both increased the visibility of think tanks and helped to dispel stereotypes and share best practices. They covered a wide range of topics — from transparent and fair housing rental conditions without discrimination to safety from violence in the digital space; from the crucial role of gender equality in the labour market for Ukraine’s effective recovery and EU integration, to safety audits of public spaces as a tool to make communities comfortable and secure in line with European standards.
Maria Volodina notes that 20 communication campaigns implemented by think tanks reached more than 9.3 million Ukrainians across all regions of the country.
This project demonstrated that even in challenging times and with limited resources, think tanks can strengthen their communication power — provided they have support, a clear vision, and room to grow.
The material was produced in framework of the Action “Network of gender think tanks: capacity development for advanced policy design, impact assessment, strategic advocacy, and specialized policy communications” implemented by the Ukrainian Women’s Fund with the support of the European Union. Contents of the publication are the sole responsibility of UWF.